tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-255563122018-03-19T19:15:50.126+00:00Another Green World'How to be green? Many people have asked us this important question. It's really very simple and requires no expert knowledge or complex skills. Here's the answer. Consume less. Share more. Enjoy life.' Penny Kemp and Derek WallDerek Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05462511891409913195noreply@blogger.comBlogger4000125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25556312.post-51534608191104029822018-03-13T20:20:00.004+00:002018-03-13T22:05:12.153+00:00Solidarity statement with Afrin from Hugo Blanco
Afrin by Hugo Blanco
At the same time as we write and read this, they have cut off
the electricity and water in Afrin, Rojava, the area and territory of the
Kurdistan Women's Revolution and Democratic Confederalism. At this same time
the Sultan Fascist Erdogan intends to complete the genocide in Afrin. He
started bombing on January 20, facing the heroic resistance of women and men in
Derek Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05462511891409913195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25556312.post-41940556455711894192018-03-04T18:20:00.001+00:002018-03-04T18:34:02.804+00:00The System
Image via https://www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/capability-systems-centre/research-themes/complexity-measures-systems-engineering
We need to move beyond 'my party is good' and 'your party is evil'. Instead we need to think about systems. The proposal that Caroline Lucas is good and Jeremy Corbyn less so or vice versa, seems unproductive. The notion that we have an elite with noxious intentions Derek Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05462511891409913195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25556312.post-59646035125601144942018-01-29T22:13:00.002+00:002018-01-29T22:15:18.657+00:00Statement from Jeremy Corbyn on #Afrin
(Photo from Newroz, a year or two ago!)
Statement from Jeremy Corbyn on Afrin
On Saturday's #DefendAfrin demonstration in London, Dan Carden MP read this statement from Jeremy Corbyn:
"I send my solidarity to the Kurdish people of Syria and all over the world. What is urgently needed is a ceasefire, de-escalation and a negotiated political solution - not further escalations and Derek Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05462511891409913195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25556312.post-84091057986221606282018-01-25T21:27:00.003+00:002018-01-25T21:27:49.768+00:00The Afrin Resistance will prevail!
TO OUR PEOPLES AND THE PUBLIC OPINION
The AKP-MHP fascist rule, in collaboration with the anti-human gangs has launched an occupation attack against Afrin. They want to totally strip Afrin, an oasis of democracy for Syria and the Middle East, of the Kurdish population and replace them with these gangs. The AKP-MHP fascist rule has once again demonstrated its enmity towards the Derek Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05462511891409913195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25556312.post-80969771418165240492018-01-16T23:05:00.002+00:002018-01-16T23:07:47.425+00:00Emergency Demonstration: Against Turkish attacks on Afrin! Friday 19th January
The Turkish armed forces are preparing to invade Afrin, a Kurdish canton in Syria.
We call everyone to join us and protest outside the Turkish Embassy in London . Date : 19/01/2018 Time: 12:00 Address: Turkish Embassy 43 Belgrave Square, Belgravia, London SW1X 8PA Closest station: Hyde Park Corner Kurdish People Assembly Roj Women Assembly Democratic Union Party (PYD)-UK
BBC Derek Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05462511891409913195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25556312.post-84958355228804405282018-01-14T19:02:00.001+00:002018-01-14T19:34:28.199+00:00White Pendragons, Fabian Society and Conspiracy
image via http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/donald-trump-supporters-sadiq-khan_uk_5a59e1ace4b03c418965d116
A meeting of the Fabian Society addressed by London Mayor Sadiq Khan was heckled by a dozen or so member of the White Pendragons, a right wing group. They shouted pro Brexit slogans, brandished US flags and advocated for Donald Trump. So far so straightforward, a previous unknownDerek Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05462511891409913195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25556312.post-11061569440790110052018-01-10T20:47:00.000+00:002018-01-10T20:47:18.413+00:00Critical humanitarian situation in Mindanao – Urgent appeal for financial aid
The most important initiative of solidarity taken by our association, ESSF, during 2017 concerned the island of Mindanao, in the south of the Philippines, reports Pierre Rousset. Then it was a question of responding to the humanitarian consequences of the “Battle of Marawi” between government forces and jihadist movements – more than 600,000 people (mostly Muslim) had to flee the Derek Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05462511891409913195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25556312.post-54519274116767237302018-01-07T12:49:00.000+00:002018-01-07T12:49:06.204+00:00Book Event: 19th February, Manchester, Elinor Ostrom's Rules for Radicals.Derek Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05462511891409913195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25556312.post-20835088804770037622018-01-04T21:08:00.001+00:002018-01-04T21:09:08.378+00:00RIP Alan Roberts pioneer of Marxism and Ecology
Alan Roberts 1925-1917
Very sad that Alan Roberts died, he was a massive influence on my politics, I found a copy of his book The Self-Managing Environment in Chippenham Library in 1980.
He clearly lead a long healthy and militant life. A working class revolutionary and scientist, he was an associate of the amazing Nick Origlass.
Intellectual work isn't simply a mirror but about Derek Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05462511891409913195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25556312.post-20121436756070073032018-01-02T13:59:00.001+00:002018-01-02T14:00:12.669+00:00Hugo Blanco says 'Send Fujimori back to prison'
Taking advantage of the holiday season, Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuzinski (PPK) freed former dictator Alberto Fujimori, imprisoned for multiple murder. Christmas Eve is called " the night of peace, night of love" but the Christmas gift of PPK to the Peruvian people was to free the symbol of war and hatred against our people .
From that moment, in Cusco, where I was, in Lima and in Derek Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05462511891409913195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25556312.post-48740063016067610792017-12-31T09:41:00.001+00:002017-12-31T09:41:46.166+00:00Hugo Blanco 'Retorno a la cárcel de Fujimori'
Retorno a la cárcel de Fujimori
(This is on the protests against the pardoning of former Peruvian President Fujimori by Hugo Blanco, the BBC and most media outlets in the UK don't put this on the front page, will get a translation when I have a moment. Fujimori's security apparatus put Hugo Blanco on their death list but he escaped before they could kill him)
Aprovechando la Derek Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05462511891409913195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25556312.post-25232981222277377772017-12-28T17:57:00.001+00:002017-12-28T18:07:10.029+00:00Spartacus
I have decided to blog about political films. Replacing vague ideas with clear images, so to speak. I spend too much time writing books and in an age of activism I am aware that the screen is more powerful than the word.
A classic to start off with is Spartacus (1960), its political virtues are legion. Spartacus the leader of a slave rebellion was famously Karl Marx's favourite hero. Derek Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05462511891409913195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25556312.post-40511567783006281782017-12-26T16:33:00.001+00:002017-12-26T16:33:19.138+00:00Britain's Gulag
Review: Britain's Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya by Caroline Elkins. Bodley Head: London (2014).
This is a devastating read. We tend to think we are the good guys and girls but the historian Caroline Elkins catalogues in great and well referenced detail a tale of rape, degradation and humilation at the end of Britain's African empire.
During the 1950s Kenya's Kikuyu people, Derek Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05462511891409913195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25556312.post-44923815285541605092017-12-23T11:38:00.002+00:002017-12-23T18:21:53.287+00:00It was if he had been killed by ISIS all over again
My
friend Mehmet Aksoy was killed by Isis in Raqqa, Syria on 26th September
this year. He had been working as a journalist and communications officer
for the Peoples Defence Force (YPG). He was not a fighter but there
instead to tell a story about how the Kurds and their allies were working to
defeat the so called Islamic State and to promote the alternative of a
democratic, diverse Derek Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05462511891409913195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25556312.post-7987947413477066922017-11-15T20:58:00.001+00:002017-11-16T00:01:10.324+00:00Ecosocialist International, Cumbe of Veroes, Bolivarian Republic of Venezeuela
THE FIRST ECOSOCIALIST INTERNATIONAL
WEAVING OURSELVES TO MOTHER EARTH
OCTOBER 31 – NOVEMBER 3, 2017
CUMBE OF VEROES, BOLIVARIAN REPUBLIC OF VENEZUELA
It has been one year since “The Calling of the Spirits” in Monte Carmelo, Lara, when with spirited minds and seeds in our hearts, we launched a convocation titled “The Cry of Mother Earth.” Those who responded to this cry are now here: Derek Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05462511891409913195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25556312.post-11619551442259729082017-09-27T21:33:00.003+00:002017-09-27T22:45:23.014+00:00WE SALUTE OUR FRIEND MEHMET AKSOY
PEACE IN KURDISTANWE SALUTE OUR FRIEND MEHMET AKSOY
It is with deep sadness and horror that we learn of the death of Mehmet Aksoy who has been killed in the fight against Islamic State (ISIS) on 26 September 2017.A dynamic Kurdish activist and talented young film maker, Mehmet died while working in Raqqa where he had journeyed in order to record the experiences of the Kurdish fighters in Derek Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05462511891409913195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25556312.post-3551789241157783552017-09-19T15:56:00.000+00:002017-09-19T15:56:08.427+00:00THE RENT TRAP
THE RENT TRAP BY ROSIE WALKER AND SAMIR JERAJ. PLUTO PRESS. 2016
Samir is a friend and Pluto Press regularly publish my books, so I must admit a conflict of interest, nonetheless with this warning I hope my brief review will be useful.
It is generally acknowledged that the UK housing market is broken. More and more, especially young people are either homeless or suffering from high Derek Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05462511891409913195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25556312.post-551134783389234002017-09-07T18:35:00.002+00:002017-09-07T18:35:13.062+00:00How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog
My wife, noting my interest in but poor understanding of mathematics, borrowed How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog, for me from Bracknell Library. It is in the genre of light physics and mathematics, I have also recent enjoyed Simon Singh's The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets (which incidentally is very good).
The conceit of the quantum physics book of explaining to Derek Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05462511891409913195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25556312.post-70960839380958827972017-09-06T20:16:00.003+00:002017-09-06T20:16:36.199+00:00Statement condemning the international arms fair in London
Image from Red Pepper http://www.redpepper.org.uk/arms-fair-protesters-put-weapons-industry-on-trial/
Peace in Kurdistan condemns the Defence and Security Equipment International arms fair being held at the ExCel Centre in London’s Docklands from 11th to 14 September 2017. It is the world’s biggest arms fair and will host guests from among the world’s most oppressive regimes, includingDerek Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05462511891409913195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25556312.post-11782948512032871332017-09-05T11:57:00.001+00:002017-09-05T12:52:21.776+00:00Gaston Bachelard
Gaston Bachelard by Roch C. Smith, Twayne Publishers: Boston. 1982
One reason I keep my hand in with university teaching is library access, working at a University of London college, means I can borrow books from Senate House Library. Its an impressive building rather brutalist and soviet but in a kind of good way! While my academic experience is around political economy I have long had Derek Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05462511891409913195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25556312.post-39010448171134337112017-09-04T13:14:00.000+00:002017-09-04T19:59:58.501+00:00Farming, Fascism and Ecology
Farming, Fascism and Ecology: A life of Jorian Jenks by Philip M. Coupland, Routledge 2016.
Philip Coupland was kind enough to send me a copy of his book on Jorian Jenks last year. What with one thing and another, including helping to organise the Global Greens Congress, finishing my own book on Elinor Ostrom and that episode with Mrs May, I have only just got around to reading it.
Jenks Derek Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05462511891409913195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25556312.post-90116397396717004202017-09-03T12:59:00.000+00:002017-09-03T12:59:43.937+00:00Communication Theory: Epistemological Foundations
I am a great visitor of charity shops in search of books, I picked up Communication Theory: Epistemological Foundations by James Anderson, for 75p in the Red Cross shop in Blandford Street, Sunderland. Every penny was well spent!
The book is aimed at students taking communication studies of various kinds and looks at the various assumption behind research in this area. However it would beDerek Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05462511891409913195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25556312.post-72057650167732557292017-08-18T14:57:00.003+00:002017-08-18T14:59:14.042+00:00Donna Tartt's The Secret History
I finished reading this about five weeks ago and have been meaning to write something about it ever since. However from indexing my own book (Elinor Ostrom's Rules for Radicals) to painting my little wooden home, the next thing has always come up.
It is of course a 'why dunnit' the murderer fesses up in the first couple of pages to murdering Bunny, the rest of book deals with why Derek Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05462511891409913195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25556312.post-65848340353201194302017-08-03T15:17:00.001+00:002017-08-03T16:27:34.762+00:00Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
For I am—or I was—one of those people who pride themselves in on their
willpower, on their ability to make a decision and carry it through.
This virtue, like most virtues, is ambiguity itself. People who believe
that they are strong-willed and the masters of their destiny can only
continue to believe this by becoming specialists in self-deception.
Their decisions are not really Derek Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05462511891409913195noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25556312.post-18765660811738051042017-08-02T16:54:00.001+00:002017-08-02T22:01:36.199+00:00Seumas Milne's The Enemy Within
I have just finished reading Seumas Milne's The Enemy Within, originally published in 1994, the fourth edition is from 2014. It examines the media campaign against National Union of Miners leader Arthur Scargill during the 1980s
Its quite a read! Highly recommended. And lets not forget Milne in 2017 is one of Jeremy Corbyn's closest political associates, an important mover and shaper...
Derek Wallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05462511891409913195noreply@blogger.com0